“Americans! Ask the Declaration of Independence and it will tell you that its authors held for self-evident truth that the right to life is the first of the unalienable rights of man and that to secure and not to destroy that right, governments are instituted.” – John Quincy Adams, President of the United States

As the colonies grew and prospered they became a much needed revenue source for Great Britain. The Parliament at the direction of the King began passing tariffs and other forms of punitive taxes on the colonists. All of these were passed without one representative from the Colonies serving in Parliament. This became one of the main issues on the list of grievances in the body of the Declaration of Independence. Taxation without representation was a war cry for the Colonists.

The people were being taxed punitively by the mother country without reaping any services in return. All their money was sent to England and used to pay for Great Britain’s expansion around the world and pay off debt accrued in the war with France. They had no voice in England’s government and greatly resented it. Then England began demanding more control over their religious freedom. These were just two of the grievances found in the Declaration.

The pastors of the Colonies were preaching freedom and the issues of the day on a weekly basis. The main texts of the Declaration were based on the sermons of the day. They were truths that were deemed self-evident by the majority of the Colonists and were expressed in the Declaration as being endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These God-given rights belonged to all as we are all created equal, and in His image.

These eternal principles acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence lay out the very foundation upon which our civil government and laws would be established. They then list their grievances and end with a pledge of their lives and all they have to the cause of liberty. I encourage you to read the list of grievances in the presence of your family around the table and discuss each one and if there is any relevance to America today.

Because the Declaration is the foundational document and the Constitution is the formation or structure built on the foundation they cannot be separated. They are divinely united and tied together. There has been a trend to separate the two documents as if the one had nothing to do with the other. The idea behind separating the two is to allow the teaching that the Constitution is a living, breathing document that is changeable at whim. Ask most high school students today if the Constitution is a living breathing document and they will say yes. However, the authors of the Constitution, who tried to anticipate all circumstances, knew that substantive issues would arise so there needed to be away to change and/or add to the Constitution. Article V of the Constitution set up the Amendment process and it has worked quite well.

Dinner table Discussion Question: Why did the Colonies seek independence? (Read the grievances.)